How I Practice Self-Care

"Self-care" has definitely become a kind of buzz word (or words, I guess) for (admittedly probably privileged) millenials, but as a person with anxiety and depression, it's something I take very seriously. I started bullet journaling last year and was super inspired by people's habit trackers, and decided to make a self-care tracker for myself both as a way to motivate myself to do some easy self-care tasks and to see how well I take care of myself on a regular basis.

Self-care doesn't have to be big things or things that cost money like a massage or a face mask or anything like that. I have a variety of levels of self-care on my self-care charts, from easy things like making my bed, accomplishing my daily tasks, and doing my makeup to things I do less often like treating myself to something nice, though on some days I even count things like watching Netflix as treating myself. I think it is really important for people to practice self-care in our society that's encourages constant busy-ness and stress, but I definitely understand that when you're struggling to get by day to day or living paycheck to paycheck that self-care can fall to the wayside.

I sometimes alternate what goes on my self-care chart depending on things I start doing more or less often. For example, I used to have "drank tea" on my self-care charts in the winter, but in the summer months I've added an "other" row for things that include drinking tea, but also other little things like going to therapy, taking a nap when I need one, or other miscellaneous self-care tasks. 

I even think filling in my self-care chart itself is a self-care activity, because it's gratifying to see that I've done nice things for myself throughout the day. Plus, using pretty colors to fill in the squares on my chart make it look pretty, too, which makes it very visually satisfying. 

I also recently discovered a habit tracker on Pinterest called "year in pixels" that tracks your daily moods. The one I saw was just a mood tracker, but I decided to add it to my self-care chart to make things more compact and easier to keep track of. When I first started the mood tracker, I was still in the throws of anxiety and depression, so I only had good days, pretty good days, okay days, bad days, anxiety, and depression listed in my color key, but as I've recovered, I've added more nuanced emotions as well:

I think tracking one's mood is also a really good way to watch out for warning signs of mental health issues. If there are a lot of days in a two week or month-long span that are anxious or depressed days, that might mean there's something to be concerned about. Tracking my mood like this has also been extremely useful in showing me how I've been recovering, as I rarely fill in my Year in Pixels boxes with "anxiety" or "depression" colors anymore. 

Keeping track of my self-care habits has shown me that there are lots of ways for a person to practice self-care, and some don't even require that much effort or money, which is especially good for me since I'm still on the job hunt. Self-care can be fun or it can be boring, but even the boring things like making your bed can make you feel like you've done something useful, and keeping track of that is a good way to acknowledge little successes every day.